Can Ben Stokes really lead England to victory in Australia? Set your alarms and gird your loins, this one’s not just big, it’s positively BrobdingnagianEither it’s the start of the 2025-26 Ashes or Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam on BBC Four is more watchable than we realised.England’s coach, the New Zealander Brendon McCullum, whose vibe is usually somewhere between Gen X slacker and Buddhist hippy, has called it “the biggest series of all our lives”.It could be career-defining for England – and career-staining for a great Australia side.All Ashes series are big; this one is positively Brobdingnagian.Well, England’s record on the last three tours is W0 D2 L13.

The last time they won in Australia was 15 years ago.And the last time they regained the Ashes (as opposed to retaining them) away from home was 55 years ago.It probably won’t.At this point we’re contractually obliged to recite that old quote from the film Clockwise.“It’s not the despair, Laura.

I can stand the despair.It’s the hope.”England drew 2-2 at home with India in the summer, a series they should have won but could have lost.More broadly, they have stolen Pakistan’s unofficial title as the world’s most mercurial team.Australia lost the World Test Championship final to South Africa in June but beat India 3-1 at home a year ago.

In the International Cricket Council’s rankings it’s 1st v 2nd – the first time that’s been the case in the Ashes since 2006-07.Australia won 5-0.England are simultaneously the best- and worst-prepared team ever to tour Australia.They’ve been planning for this series since McCullum, Ben Stokes and Rob Key took over in the spring of 2022, building a bespoke team they hope will be more Ocean’s Eleven than The Usual Suspects.But they’ve been heavily – some might even say tediously – criticised for playing only one warm-up game, at Lilac Hill near Perth, last week.

This England team prepare differently, and so far it has worked.In the Bazball era they have won the first Test of all five overseas series.Important enough, if you’re an England fan, to turn your heart into a drum-n-bass track.Not one of those melodic, soulful ones either.The last time England came from behind to win in Australia was 1954-55, and Ashes tours can spiral out of control at dizzying speed.

Realistically England need to be level or ahead after two Tests.All right-thinking persons should fear such a surreal violation – as should Hayden, given it carries a maximum six-month prison sentence under Victoria state legislation – but for England fans it would be especially painful.Hayden, a former Australia opener, says he will embrace a hitherto dormant naturist side if Joe Root doesn’t score a century in the series.Despite a decent overall record, Root has never reached three figures in a Test in Australia.All of them, because a) cricket is a squad game now and b) you can probably afford two passengers at most in Australia.

But Root, Stokes (the batter), Stokes (the bowler), Stokes (the captain), Harry Brook – statistically the most attacking batter in Test history – and Jofra Archer stand out.Two of the top three, Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope, have modest records and tend to deal in feast or famine.Their only specialist spin bowler, the 22-year-old Shoaib Bashir, will be targeted without a scintilla of mercy.And England’s fast bowlers are vulnerable to injury.The fastest-growing pastime in England, doomscrolling in bed in the morning, may take on new meaning over the next few weeks as cricket fans process another overnight medical bulletin.

At the age of 36, Smith has plummeted to the ranks of merely brilliant batters.Since the last Ashes his Test average is just 41.But in the past year he has, from an English perspective, looked chillingly close to his best.When he captains against England – as he will in the first Test – he averages 112.They are without Josh Hazlewood and their captain, Pat Cummins, two of the fabled pace trio who between them have over a thousand Test wickets, for at least the first Test.

They picked a bloated 15-man squad, reflecting an uncertainty around the top three in particular.And only one of that squad, Cameron Green, is in his 20s.Depending on which social media rabbit hole you have the misfortune to stumble down, the age of Australia’s squad is proof they are hardened champions or wheezing has-beens waiting to be put of their misery.Blame Sir Alastair Cook.His endless 244 not out at Melbourne in 2017-18 catalysed a change in the balance between bat and ball.

In Test cricket, the 2020s are the most bowler-friendly decade in Australia since the 1950s.The first two games of this series, in Perth and Brisbane, could be dramatically low-scoring.Like 99.94% of humanity, Australians prefer having the moral high ground to themselves.After decades of sneering at England for being crap and boring, they can’t really do either – though the C-word will be back on the table if England assume the traditional role of Poms to the slaughter.

They’re the better team, they have home advantage.Most of all, they’re Australia.They’ve put all their eggs in this basket.Hell, they even made the basket out of the same terracotta as the Ashes urn.Australia are traditionally most vulnerable when teams attack; England’s team are custom-designed for that.

Most persuasively, some things are just meant to be.Right?Just below 2005 – but with less free booze and nobody watering the garden at No 10 Downing Street.An England win would complete the Bazball arc with a narrative neatness that borders on schmaltz.It would also cement Stokes – who has already won a World Cup final, performed umpteen acts of super-heroism, captained with empathic, intuitive genius and redefined the alpha male in English sport – as England’s greatest ever cricketer.That’s the fantasy.

For two-eyed supporters on both sides, the dream is for the series to be 2-2 going into the final Test in Sydney.Should that happen, half of England will be living on Australian time – and it won’t be to watch Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam.